The short answer: No, usually not.
The longer answer: sometimes, and in some cases, yes.
Autoimmune disease arises when your immune system attacks elements of your body that are not foreign and pose no threat to your health. In Rheumatoid Arthritis, for example, T cells, part of adaptive immunity, errantly attack cells in the lining of the joints, causing sore joints and swelling.
Someone who is immune compromised (or is immune deficient) has an immune system that cannot effectively fight infection. This can occur because of some genetic anomaly that affects the working order of specific kinds of immune cells, or because of some kind of infection. For example, someone with HIV may be described as immune compromised because HIV destroys a specific type of T cell that drives immune responses. Without this type of T cell, its harder to initiate an immune response in the body.
So in general different processes generate autoimmunity and immune deficiency.
But they may “overlap” in some circumstances. For example, some drugs for RA attempt to dampen the chemical signals that encourage the full and faithful activity of T cells, in an attempt to tamp down joint pain, This tamping isn’t free (what is?) , and may make the person more suceptible (i.e. immune compromised) to other kinds of infections. Similarly, many steroid drugs taken to reduce the symptoms of autoimmunity do so by curbing the activity of immune cells, which may make the patient less able to fight infection.
There is also evidence that autoimmunity and immune deficiency are separated by a blurry line. This article from 2012 suggests that the genetic abberations that contribute to SLE may also contribute to immune dysfunction. SLE patients tend to have immune defects in both innate (monocytes and macrophages) and adaptive ( B and T) immune pathways. The authors argue that ultimately these are “interconnected processes”, and suggest that the relationship that exists between SLE and immune deficiences may also be at play in MS, T1DM, Sjogren’s and RA.
And, some autoimmune conditions may inherently make people’s immune systems function less effectively. For example, the high blood sugar that marks poorly controlled Type 1 Diabetes is known to impair immune function. Information about specific molecular pathways can be found here.
March 10 2020